Development and Preliminary Validation of the Questionnaire (the First Edition) Based on TCM for Detecting Health Status in China

Background. More and more people come to realize the importance of healthcare and early detecting of health status before becoming much more serious. Self-perceived health is an easy, economic, and effective indicator of health, which has been widely applied in measuring health. In this paper, the development and preliminary validation of the questionnaire (the First Edition) based on TCM theory were described and combined with Manual Mental Health Pattern for detecting health status in community of Tianjin, China. Methods. Questionnaire validity and reliability were evaluated in a small sample as a pilot study. Analyses included tests for reliability and internal consistency, exploratory factor analysis, and tests for discriminative ability and convergent validity. Results. Overall, 294 of 303 participants completed the questionnaire (97.3%). The questionnaire included 49 items. Cronbach's α was 0.83. Factor analysis established 10 distinct domains. The Pearson's rho correlation between the total scores and MHP (SCL) was statistically significant (r = 0.43, P < 0.001). t-test revealed significant differences (P < 0.05) in total scores between the healthy and unhealthy results distinguished by physical examination. Conclusions. Questionnaire reliability and validity were acceptable. Further work and larger sample would be warranted to refine items that measure the health status, to improve the reliability and discriminated validity of the questionnaire.